


Living Fairy Tales

by kittydesade



Category: Beauty and the Beast (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It wasn't on your prompt list, but I thought I'd try it anyway since I was more familiar with this than the others. >.></p></blockquote>





	Living Fairy Tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Not From Stars (Shadowcat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/gifts).



"Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, how to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar, my heart mine eye the freedom of that right."

Vincent treasured simple moments like this. He didn't always get to spend as much time with her as he wished, nights she had to work, daylight hours he couldn't leave the tunnels for fear of being seen. Here in his room, resting, they could be at peace. He was seated on the bed with his back leaning against the wall so she could lean against his chest. She had stretched out her legs along the length of his bed and kicked off her shoes and was enjoying that she got to be herself, without reservation or concern or holding back or giving more than she wanted to.

As far as he was concerned, she was beautiful just as she was. The scent of her in the stone of his home all around them, and listening to her smile when she sighed. The weight of her against him, in his arms, the touch of her hair as it drifted over his hands. The sound of her voice, now and again, when they felt moved to speak. She asked him to recite something for her. He could do that.

"You have a beautiful voice for poetry." Catherine smiled, lifting her head to look at him. She had a way of looking at him that was special. Not making him forget what he was, or making him feel beautiful as compared with the rest of the time, but seeing him. Drinking him in, whatever he gave, and being happy for it.

He looked back at her, with her strong features and her soft eyes when she relaxed and he could recite poetry for her till his throat gave out. "You seem to inspire that in me."

"Nonsense," she laughed, settling back against him as he tucked his chin on top of her head, smiling. "You did perfectly well before I came along."

"All right," he chuckled. "You inspire me to enjoy it more than I have in years. More than I have since I first learned to appreciate it…"

She made a small noise of demurring, but didn't argue. And it was true. Seeing so many things through her eyes made them new again for him. Wonders of his home that he had become so used to became wonderous. In turn, she told him once, she was learning to appreciate small things she had taken for granted. Heat and light and, she added with a chuckle, indoor plumbing.

"I used to think it would be a grand thing to live life in a fairy tale," Catherine mused. Half asleep, he thought, at least by the drifting of her voice. "Have trials and win favors, kingdoms and loved ones and rescuing people from dragons."

"And now?" he asked after a moment, smiling.

She snorted a little, and the tension in her body told him she'd woken up a bit. "Now I think it would be nice if life were that simple. Do three trials and win the prince's hand in marriage and nothing bad will happen to you ever again."

Vincent made a noise of agreement for lack of anything more comforting to say, or something of substance. He could understand, though. He felt the same way sometimes, when the need to do something to help conflicted with the tunnel-dwellers' need for secrecy. When disobeying Father to do what he felt was a worthy deed ended in unpleasantness at best and tragedy at worst. Simple problems never had simple solutions, not when the consequences were reckoned up with the tally, and in a story things were always neat. There were no multiple views to consider, the long and the short. If you did good things you were a good person, and there was an end to it.

And, yes. Being assured that nothing bad would happen ever again if you did as you were told and quested for the grail with a pure heart and a noble spirit, that was tempting.

"It would be nice," he rumbled his agreement, sighing as her fingers crawled up his shirt to play at the ends of his hair. "I'd venture to say that it sounds as though it would also be very boring."

She laughed. A lighter sound than he'd half expected from the way the conversation was going. "I can't say that's not true. Hard as it is, I do enjoy…" she lifted her head to speak to him face to face again. "Fighting for something. Knowing you've done some good in the world. That this isn't going to be the way it is, always. That things can change. That things can be better."

He could understand that, too. "If things can be worse, they can also be better?"

"Something like that."

Vincent nodded. "Things can be better in the most unexpected of ways," he mused aloud, combing his fingers through her hair. "You can turn a corner and meet anyone. An old enemy, an old friend. A new love…"

She caught the smile in his voice easily, caught his meaning and answered it with a smile of her own and eyes bright as any star in the sky. And he caught her delight and the little thrill and felt his heart answering with one of her own. "As easily as turning a corner?"

"As easy as that."

He loved these little moments. He loved that he could tease her, she could tease him and it was light and complex at the same time. That they met on so many fields, in so many ways, and understood each other. Whether fate or chance had brought them together, or some strange combination of both, it didn't matter. He didn't care. She was a blessing in his life whatever the reason, and he treasured every moment with her, tried to convey that however he could.

The way she smiled at him, tucked her head back against him and rested in his arms, sharing this time with him as she shared all the time she could. That told him he was successful, and she understood.

**Author's Note:**

> It wasn't on your prompt list, but I thought I'd try it anyway since I was more familiar with this than the others. >.>


End file.
